Two Horsemen
by DHWMirror
Summary: A cautionary tale about time. AU. Written for hp darkfest 2012.


**Prompt: 27.** "The distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent." Albert Einstein  
 **Author/Artist's notes:** I just want to say thank you to my lovely beta, SBrande.  
 **Disclaimer:** Not mine. They belong to JKR. Sad, sad times.

* * *

 **| I |**

Once upon a time there was a woman who was everywhere and everywhen.

She was a riot of curls and practicality, all age and no wisdom. Maiden, mother and crone all wrapped up in one, a singularity nature chose to ignore.

Her name was Death and she was lonely.

* * *

 **| II |**

She wasn't careful what she wished for. Either that, or the star lied.

Power corrupts and there is no greater than that over life and death. It's what she'd always wanted.

Today (or perhaps tomorrow), Salazar Slytherin dies.

She appears as the arrow drives its way home, the velvet skin of his chest parting beneath the tip with a whisper. Her palm brushes over his heart, feeling its deep thrum begin to fade. She's close, breasts and hips pushing against him like an old lover, her lips gently brushing his jaw as she speaks.

 _I have come for you, Salazar._

He's rigid beneath her touch and trembling.

'No! I am not ready for you!'

 _Nobody ever is, but I am Death._

Blood, hot and slick, oozes between their bodies, turning her white dress red.

 _It is your time._

* * *

 **| III |**

She is the end of all things and the beginning of none. One of four and half a whole, forever listening for the gentle rhythm of hoof beats.

And she is ever so lonely.

* * *

 **| IV |**

The path to hell is paved with good intentions and dusty grey stone. It is walked by a woman with curves in all the wrong places.

She was human once. Only she isn't anymore. She is nameless in the void, the personification of a fear that waits at the edge of dreams. Faceless and lost as if she never was.

Which maybe she wasn't.

Time is like that. Convoluted.

* * *

A cold breeze blows through the gaps in reality and she swears she can hear a name.

It sounds like conflict and the boom of drums.

* * *

Some days the memories are easier to recall. Fluid and beautiful, dancing through her mind like water.

She'd tried her best, full to the brim of selfishly corrupted ideals. A ghost of a hero, a sweet sacrifice that left a bitter taste. But she'd failed in the end. Like she always knew she would.

The time turner had smashed, sand pouring between her fingers.

And it had hurt.

* * *

 **| V |**

It's cosmic irony, she thinks, that she is his end.

He's the scent of the rain after the storm, full of bottled lightning that sparks every time they touch. The promise of fire that burns deep in her core. Her first and his beginning. Life in concentric circles, orbiting around her dimming star.

 _I have come for you, my love._

Ron is old now, his hair faded to white and his face lined.

'Who are you?'

The sweet tinkling of glass fills the air as the last of her heart shatters in her chest.

 _How could you forget?_

* * *

Wind whips across the sand, hot and dry and desolate. It smells of decay and a city long since lost to the desert. Alone, Death cries her crystal tears and learns an important lesson about fate.

* * *

 **| VI |**

Time is a fabric woven from beautiful mathematics, the parameters each a universe in Greek. Infinite strings of equations entwined until they blur into a cloth of night sky and possibility, covering space without direction.

Outside space, and therefore time, is the Nothing. It's grey there, all shades and no substance. A fortress made of the shadows of humanity sits at its centre, its great gates guarded by nightmares as real as their surroundings. In the window of the tallest tower sits Death herself, staring out with hazel eyes into the space that surrounds her island.

She is the latest incarnation, cheated by the last in a game of cards.

There is no light in the Nothing, but still she sees. A thousand lives winking out of existence with every blink of her tired eyes. And with the seeing comes the knowing, the sweet sense of inevitability; War is coming.

Or going.

Time isn't linear, it's quadratic, the constants twisting with perspective.

* * *

 **| VII |**

The night Professor Dumbledore falls from the tower it is raining.

 _Do you know who I am?_

'Death,' he says simply.

She smiles gently, holding out her hand.

* * *

She takes Remus and Tonks, James and Lily, Harry and Ginny, Bellatrix and Rodolphus, Frank and Alice. All in pairs, walking hand in hand to the sound of horses.

Mates.

Lovers.

Only Tom comes alone, scared and whimpering in the dark.

* * *

 **| VIII |**

It's almost like déjà vu. Only she is watching from the other side of the mirror and the drumming of hooves has stopped. Everything is quiet now.

 _My old friend._

Dark eyes flicker up to her face and a huff of amusement passes his lips. His trembling hand is pressed to his throat, blood oozing thickly between long, white fingers.

'Miss Granger. It _would_ have to be you.'

Death smiles sadly, sitting down beside him, her back resting against the rotten wood of the Shack.

* * *

'How many lives?' Blood oozes from his neck, mingling with the tips of his lank hair.

His hand reaches out to her, stroking her cheek. His fingers leave red streaks in their wake; the mark of War shining on Death's face. She's like silk beneath his fingers, soft and rough in equal parts, fraying at the edges.

A moan escapes her pale lips, full of colour in a world of shadow and smoke.

 _Hundreds. And here we are again, you and I._

'Here we are.' His lips ghost over hers. 'Different and yet the same.'

* * *

Severus fucks Hermione on the wooden floor. Blood and sweat mingle, their bodies slick and hot and lost in each other. A beautiful agony painted in shades of immortality.

The earth shakes beneath them, cracking roads and shattering buildings; volcanoes spit fire and smoke; and somewhere, the sea engulfs a tiny island, washing it away as though it never was. Large disasters with little deaths.

The drums of War crescendo, even in their beat, and the cycle begins again. The endless dance of cosmic love, War and Death entwined.

* * *

 **| XI |**

God claps his hands and spooks the horses. The fire dies and the ashes are scattered.

The world begins to change.

* * *

 **| X |**

The pavement beneath her feet is grey and dusty. Well trodden. Chance and circumstance tugs at her chest, pulling her gently towards her fate. Towards the phoenix with the red steed.

There is a scream in the darkness and the scent of blood on the soft night breeze.


End file.
